George McGovern Biography Quotes 10 Report mistakes

Early Life
George Stanley McGovern was born on July 19, 1922, in Avon, South Dakota, and grew up largely in the prairie town of Mitchell. His father was a Methodist minister, and the family lived modestly, moving as pastoral assignments required. The call-and-response rhythms of church life, the hard realities of the Great Depression, and the Dust Bowl years formed the backdrop for his childhood. In high school he discovered debate, a discipline that honed his research habits and gave him the confidence to speak with clarity and empathy, traits that would mark his public life. He enrolled at Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell, a campus community that nurtured his interest in history, ethics, and social responsibility.

Military Service
World War II interrupted his studies. McGovern enlisted in the Army Air Forces and trained as a B-24 Liberator pilot. Flying out of Italy with the 15th Air Force, he completed 35 combat missions over occupied Europe. He named his plane the Dakota Queen in honor of his wife, Eleanor, and earned the Distinguished Flying Cross for skill and courage under fire. The moral complexity of wartime choices stayed with him; he later spoke candidly about missions in which civilian lives were at risk and how those memories deepened his commitment to peace.

Education and Early Career
After the war, McGovern returned to Dakota Wesleyan, finished his degree, and married Eleanor Stegeberg in 1943, a partnership that would be central to his life and politics. He pursued graduate study at Northwestern University, earning a doctorate in history. He taught at Dakota Wesleyan and wrote on labor history, sharpening his understanding of how public policy touches families and work. By the mid-1950s he was active in South Dakota's Democratic politics, an arena dominated locally by Republicans, and earned a reputation as an organizer who could bridge prairie pragmatism with humanitarian ideals.

Congress and the Kennedy Years
McGovern won election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1956 and was reelected in 1958, giving South Dakota a rare Democratic voice in Washington. In 1960 he sought a Senate seat but lost to incumbent Karl Mundt. President John F. Kennedy then appointed him the first director of the Food for Peace program in 1961. As a special assistant to the president, McGovern helped link American agricultural abundance to global anti-hunger efforts, a role that sent him across continents and reinforced his belief that foreign policy and food policy were inseparable. He left that post to run again for the Senate and won in 1962.

The United States Senate
McGovern served in the Senate from 1963 to 1981. He became one of the most prominent congressional critics of the Vietnam War, working across party lines with figures such as Republican Senator Mark Hatfield to advance proposals that would set timetables for withdrawal. He spoke often about the war's human costs, positioning himself with antiwar Democrats like Eugene McCarthy and, later, with supporters of Robert F. Kennedy. Within the Senate, he chaired the Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, whose hearings exposed hunger and malnutrition in America and led to expansions of school lunch and food stamp programs and, ultimately, to influential dietary goals for the nation. His legislative interests consistently linked farm policy, public health, and poverty reduction.

The McGovern–Fraser Reforms
After the 1968 Democratic National Convention, the party established a commission to democratize the presidential nominating process. McGovern co-chaired that effort with Representative Donald Fraser. The commission's changes widened participation in primaries and caucuses, rebalanced power away from party bosses, and opened the door to a more transparent selection of delegates. Those reforms reshaped American presidential politics for generations.

1972 Presidential Campaign
In 1972 McGovern sought the Democratic nomination on a platform that called for ending the Vietnam War, redirecting resources to education and healthcare, and expanding civil rights. Key figures around him included campaign manager Gary Hart and press secretary Frank Mankiewicz, a veteran of Robert F. Kennedy's team. McGovern's antiwar message galvanized volunteers and younger voters, and after a grueling primary season against rivals including Hubert Humphrey and George Wallace, he captured the nomination.

A fateful vice-presidential choice defined the general election. He initially selected Senator Thomas Eagleton, but reports of Eagleton's past treatment for depression, including electroshock therapy, sparked a political crisis. Eagleton eventually withdrew, and Sargent Shriver joined the ticket. The turmoil damaged the campaign's credibility. Facing the incumbent president, Richard Nixon, McGovern was defeated in a landslide, carrying only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia. Despite the loss, his call to "Come home, America" became a lasting statement of moral and strategic dissent from the war.

Return to the Senate and 1980 Defeat
McGovern returned to the Senate and won reelection in 1974 amid the post-Watergate climate. He continued to focus on hunger, nutrition, rural development, and arms control. He forged practical relationships across the aisle, notably with Republican Senator Bob Dole on food and agriculture issues. In 1980, however, a national conservative wave aided his challenger, James Abdnor, and McGovern lost his seat after three terms.

Later Political Efforts and Business Lessons
He made a brief run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 but withdrew early. Away from elected office, McGovern accepted teaching appointments and continued writing. He also tried his hand at running a small hotel business. The experience ended in failure, and he later wrote frankly about the regulatory and financial challenges faced by small entrepreneurs, an unusual admission that reflected his habit of self-examination and his willingness to learn from experience.

Humanitarian Leadership and Bipartisan Partnerships
McGovern's most enduring work after the Senate returned to global hunger. President Bill Clinton appointed him U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture, based in Rome, in 1998. He became a leading advocate of school feeding and maternal-child nutrition, often appearing with Bob Dole to argue that fighting hunger served both humanitarian and strategic ends. Their efforts culminated in the McGovern, Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program, which supports school meals in low-income countries and increases girls' access to education.

In recognition of these efforts, McGovern received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2000. He and Dole shared the World Food Prize in 2008, a bipartisan testament to their partnership against hunger and malnutrition.

Personal Life
Eleanor "Ellie" McGovern was his closest confidante and political ally from their wartime courtship onward; she died in 2007. The couple had five children: Ann, Susan, Teresa (known as Terry), Steven, and Mary. The family's joys and sorrows shaped McGovern's public voice. Terry struggled with alcoholism and died in 1994, a loss he addressed in a candid memoir that sought to reduce stigma and promote treatment. He often said that public health policy was, at heart, about families like his trying to navigate hardship with dignity. Friends and colleagues such as Tom Daschle, who rose to Senate leadership from the same South Dakota soil, have recalled how the McGoverns made politics feel like an extension of neighborly obligation.

Legacy and Death
McGovern's legacy rests on twin pillars: moral clarity in opposition to the Vietnam War and practical, bipartisan leadership against hunger at home and abroad. He helped align the Democratic Party with grassroots participation through the McGovern, Fraser reforms, expanded the nation's nutrition programs, and kept the issue of food insecurity on the international agenda. Even in defeat, his 1972 campaign broadened the electorate and inspired a generation of organizers and future leaders, among them Gary Hart.

George McGovern died on October 21, 2012, in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, at age 90. Tributes flowed from across the political spectrum. Figures including Bill Clinton and Tom Daschle emphasized his compassion, tenacity, and the example he set in building coalitions on issues that transcend partisanship. To those who knew him, he remained the measured voice from the prairie, a historian-pilot-turned-statesman who believed that the measure of a nation lies in how it treats the vulnerable and whether it chooses war or peace.

Our collection contains 10 quotes who is written by George, under the main topics: Witty One-Liners - Ethics & Morality - Justice - Freedom - Honesty & Integrity.

Other people realated to George: Hunter S. Thompson (Journalist), Shirley Chisholm (Politician), Mark Hatfield (Politician), Stephen Ambrose (Historian), Eugene McCarthy (Politician), Sargent Shriver (Politician), Edward Witten (Mathematician), Theodore White (Journalist), Bob Dole (Politician), George Meany (Activist)